Chapter counterpart

Japanese airdate

English airdate

Previous episode

Next episode

Ginyu Assault (ついに直接対決!! ギニュー隊長のおでましだ,Tsui ni Chokusetsu Taiketsu!! Ginyu Taicho no Odemashi da, lit. Finally, a Direct Confrontation!! Captain Ginyu Takes the Field) is the first episode of the Captain Ginyu Saga and the sixty-eighth overall episode in the uncut Dragon Ball Z series. The episode first aired on November 21, 1990. Its original American air date was September 13, 1999.

Contents

Summary

Vegeta executes Burter

Burter can not believe that someone was faster than him. Engulfed in rage, Burter started to attack Goku head on. Jeice also enters the fight. This only leads to Goku slipping out of the way and Jeice ends up punching Burter in the mouth on accident, and Burter ends up kneeing Jeice in the stomach on accident. Then, Goku knocks out Burter with the Kaio-ken Finish. With that, Jeice leaves the scene in order to get his boss, Captain Ginyu.

Frieza's soldiers bury the Dragon Balls

Vegeta then kills Burter and Recoome with a couple of attacks, breaking Burter's neck and blasting Recoome. He then told Goku that he is too soft and that he should not give anyone compassion when on the battlefield. Goku refuses to accept his words.

Captain Ginyu wants to face Goku after Jeice alerts him of the threat

Vegeta also thought that Frieza had already made his wish for immortality. However, Krillin and Goku disagreed as firstly when you call upon the Dragon, large thunder, dark clouds and raging winds occur. Also, there is a password for summoning the Dragon that only the Nameks know.

Meanwhile, at Frieza's spaceship, Jeice tells Captain Ginyu what happened. Captain Ginyu could not believe that his Ginyu Force could have been destroyed. Captain Ginyu then tells Jeice that if he wants his job back as part of the Ginyu force, he would first have to show the militants some Ginyu style and so they did. After that, they left for the battlefield. Goku and the others notice their incoming and when they arrive Captain Ginyu reads Goku's power level as only being 5,000 but realises that it isn't his true power. Goku tells Gohan and Krillin to use the Dragon Radar to find the abandoned Dragon Balls and asks for Vegeta's assistance in the battle against Captain Ginyu and Jeice but Vegeta leaves Goku behind as Captain Ginyu goes in on the attack.

Differences from the manga

In the anime, Frieza's soldier continue to try out for a spot in the Ginyu Force with Captain Ginyu ordering them to dig up and hide the Dragon Balls. In the manga, the soldiers are not present in the scene and Captain Ginyu orders Jeice to hide the Dragon Balls instead.

Bulma wondering whether Goku has arrived on Namek yet and if he may have forgotten about her is exclusive to the anime.

Trivia

The characters' voices change, as FUNimation Entertainment takes over vocal production. Even after FUNimation redubbed the earlier episodes, and parts of this episode years later, several voices are different.

For their release of the Captain Ginyu Saga, FUNimation did not include recaps or even the lone next episode preview that are usually found on their individual discs. This is because episodes 54-56 aired in a slightly edited form on Toonami to make up for the place at which episode 53 had been edited to stop. To make up for this, FUNimation created new recaps for half of the Captain Ginyu Saga until the footage began to sync up to the Japanese version by episode 57. Therefore, the recaps seen in the TV version of episodes 54-56 are different from the recaps seen on later DVD and Blu-ray releases.

As mentioned before, approximately eight minutes of the beginning of this episode (as seen on the Captain Ginyu: Assault DVD) is actually leftover footage from the previous episode. FUNimation had to include the rest of episode 53 that Saban had left on the chopping block, giving the uncut version of episode 54 a runtime of about 30 minutes instead of the usual 23.

When Jeice tries to tell Captain Ginyu what happened, Ginyu asked "Where are Burter and Recoome?", but does not ask about Guldo. It is possible he suspected he would die and did not care. However he did later mention his name when listing his squad members that died.

This is the first episode to feature the new Faulconer Productions score, replacing Saban's soundtrack from the first two English dub seasons as well as replacing Nathan Johnson's score from the first 67 uncut episodes. This would last all the way to the final episode of Dragon Ball Z.

In the original FUNimation dub version of this episode, Burter is in disbelief at Goku's speed. When he states he cannot believe there is anyone as fast as him, Jeice says "well apparently he is." When he mentions this later to Goku, Goku partially echoes the line by saying "well apparently I am." Because the DVD releases correspond to the original Japanese episodes and not the FUNimation TV edits, Goku's line is intact but the earlier Jeice one is not, ruining the joke.

A few changes are made in the remastered dub:

Before the eyecatch, Jeice's added lines are redone. Also, before he and Ginyu take off, he makes an added grunt while gritting his teeth and says "I hear you, Captain."

The Closing Theme playing after the episode title card is edited to fit with the panning shot that was cut in the original dub.

This episode premiered on Cartoon Network's Toonami exactly three years to the day that "The Arrival of Raditz" premiered in syndication on September 13, 1996. Furthermore, both episodes marked the debut of their respective dubs ("Arrival" for the Ocean dub, and "Ginyu Assault" for the Funimation dub).

Gallery

Burter and Jeice

Burter and Jeice attack

Goku dominates Burter

Goku kicks Burter

Goku elbows Burter

Goku elbows Burter

Burter elbowed on the back of the head

Burter knocked out

Kaio-ken Finish

Goku stands victorious over Burter

Vegeta fires an energy wave to finish off an unconscious Recoome

Krillin explains to Vegeta why the Dragon Balls still haven't been used

Frieza's soldiers

Goku

Ginyu sees Goku as a unique warrior, whom he can test his true power on